MoU with Israel: Ummah Movement wants Bianca Ojukwu-Odumegwu called to order

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*Photo: Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu-Odumegwu*

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PRESS RELEASE:

Ummah Movement Demands that Minister of State for Foreign Affairs be Called to Order
and all Trade, Military and Intelligence Agreements with Israel be Terminated

The Ummah Movement, with headquarters at the National Islamic Centre (NIC),Dogarawa, Zaria, on behalf of its teeming members, wishes to register its shock and anger at the recent brazen insult to the sensibilities of millions of Nigerian Muslims
and other people of conscience.

That is the flawed signing of a communique and MoU between the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu-Odumegwu for Nigeria with Israel’s Vice-foreign Minister Haskel-Harpaz.

The poisonous MoU is wrapped in diplomatese, “enhancing cooperation in intelligence and information sharing, particularly regarding terror financing, and
the need for advanced security training”. There it is, the Minister of State handing over our security and anti-terrorist fight strategy to Israel, without our elected representatives in the National Assembly factoring the voice of the Nigerian electorate.

It is unimaginable that the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs would lead Nigeria
into any formal dialogue or agreement with the Zionist State, whose hands are dripping with blood of over 60,000 Palestinian Muslims and Christians killed since October 2023. Israel, a State that has gone berserk, unleashing genocide upon hapless Palestinian civilians,women and children and still unable to secure itself, cannot in anyway be qualified to protect Nigeria.

The Ummah Movement finds it relevant to restate the four cardinal principles of Nigerian foreign policy, articulated by the revered late Prime Minister, Alhaji
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in 1960 and which were later incorporated into the 1999
constitution: one, support for liberation movements,particularly oppressed people;
two, commitment to world peace; three, respect for territorial integrity and
sovereignty of all nations; and four, respect for human dignity, and by implication
rejection of all forms of oppression like colonialism, apartheid and zionism. Nigeria
made sacrifices to keep the peace in the Congo, it cut off relations with France
following the nuclear tests in the Sahara desert by France in the 1960s and it supported the Palestinians in their struggle against Zionism, in the same way it became a frontline state for the liberation of Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

Similarly, Nigeria has committed itself to a two state solution to resolve the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the FG should therefore live up to the call by Vice President Kashim Shettima in 2024 at the UN General Assembly, “for an immediate
ceasefire and … justice, freedom, and full independence for the Palestinian people.”

We therefore categorically demand that;
1. The principles of Nigerian foreign policy which place Nigeria at the forefront
of Africa’s leadership must not be unilaterally discarded and violated by Mrs. Ojukwu or the Federal Government without any consideration of public
opinion.

2. The government should call to order the Minister of State before she instigates chaos and compounds the security problems of the country.

3. Nigeria should proceed to an immediate termination of all military and intelligence agreements with Israel.

4. The Government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu should recall Nigeria’s Ambassador from Israel for consultations, expel the Israeli Ambassador from Abuja and ban crude oil exports to the Zionist state until it halts its genocide in Gaza on
unarmed and starving Muslim and Christian men, women and children.

We pray to Allah, the Lord of Mercy and Generosity to forgive the victims of Israeli genocide and admit them to Jannatul firdaus, the highest state in
paradise.

Signed:

Prof. Muhammad Babangida
National Amir, NIC.